Wiggins Takes Yellow at Tour de France as Froome Triumphs

New overall leader's yellow jersey, Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins, celebrates on the podium at the end of the 199km and seventh stage of the 2012 Tour de France cycling race starting in Tomblaine and finishing in La Planche des Belles Filles, eastern France, on July 7, 2012. (LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/GettyImages)

LA PLANCHE DES BELLES FILLES, France, July 7, 2012 (AFP) — A year on from his unplanned exit from the Tour de France, Olympic track champion Bradley Wiggins achieved his childhood dream of pulling on the yellow jersey Saturday. Now, the Team Sky leader hopes to race like his boyhood hero Miguel Indurain and defend it all the way to Paris.

"We'll take it day by day now but, as I've said before you can't choose when you take the yellow jersey in the Tour de France," said Wiggins, who leads defending champion Cadel Evans by 10secs overall. "We'll defend it every day now. Cadel is hot on our heels so it's not something we're going to accidentally try and lose to him."

Wiggins, who has come into this year's race as the big threat to Evans, only finished third on the first hilltop finish of the race in the French Vosges. But the statistics did not paint the true picture of the day's gains and losses.

In a short but intense spell of racing over 5.9 km to the summit, Sky's pace-setting meant a host of so-called contenders—Alejandro Valverde, Levi Leipheimer, Frank Schleck, and Andreas Kloden—all lost at least a minute to Wiggins and Evans.

Only Italy's Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas, considered the pair's biggest threat, limited his losses by losing only 5secs to them. Nibali, the 2010 Tour of Spain champion, is now third overall at 16 behind Wiggins and 6s behind Evans. After the Italian had dropped back, Evans launched a bid for victory 360 meters out that Wiggins' teammate Christopher Froome countered.

He passed the Australian with apparent ease to claim his maiden Tour stage as well as inheriting the King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey.

"I wanted to get some speed going off the curve; you try and take what advantage you can," said Evans. "Froome was really incredible, he followed me and then accelerated past me. From behind it looked like he won easy."

Chris Froome won Stage 7 of the Tour de France ahead of Cadel Evans and Wiggins. (James Startt)Wiggins added: "I was always expecting Cadel to make a move but that kind of climb is very abnormal in the Tour de France—a 20 percent (gradient) finish like that. I was shouting at Froomey with a kilometer and a half to go to just save a little, that we didn't need to go any harder," added Wiggins.

"I knew he could win the stage if he just kept a little bit back. It was a great finish for him," Wiggins said. "It was just a case of just holding back to ensure that I was able to stay with Cadel and took the jersey, that was the priority of the day."

A day ahead of a tricky eighth stage in the hilly Swiss Jura, and two days out from the first major time trial, Evans has already been given food for thought. BMC hope to defend their Tour title with a team composed mainly of one-day classics specialists, with climbers like American Tejay van Garderen hoping to do what they can to help Evans in the mountains.

But by the time Wiggins began the final climb sitting on the wheels of teammates Michael Rogers, Richie Porte, and Froome, Evans had lost all of his BMC teammates. Evans, who finished third at the Dauphiné in June where a triumphant Wiggins' team had put on a show, was not really surprised.

"When you see he's got three guys with him and I've got one, or maybe I was isolated already, what can you do?" said the Australian. "They've showed their strength in the team, which as we've seen in Dauphiné was always possible."

Wiggins, meanwhile, will savor the day for years to come. "I'd sit on the home trainer watching my hero—my Tour de France hero—Miguel Indurain ... but to be here, on the top of a mountain in the yellow jersey is phenomenal," he said. "This was the plan; it's what we've trained for all year."

Wiggins, 50 Years After Simpson

Wiggins in yellow. (Photo by James Startt)

Wiggins became only the fifth Briton to pull on the Tour de France yellow jersey. Wiggins, born in Belgium but raised in London, is the first Briton since Scot David Millar to lead the race. The first Briton to do so was pioneering Englishman Tom Simpson.

While Millar wore the yellow jersey for the three first days in 2000, following his victory in the prologue, Chris Boardman has worn it longest of any Britons with six days in yellow. Sean Yates, Wiggins' current sports director at Sky, also wore the yellow jersey for a day in 1994 when the race spent a brief spell in England.

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